The Basic Skills Needed at Work: A Directory. A Companion Report to "Basic Skills and Jobs."

Atkinson, John; And Others

This directory details the requirements for and supply of basic skills in the work force of England and Wales as determined in a survey of 73 Training and Enterprise Councils that covered approximately 1.3 million jobs below the professional and technical level in 24,000 establishments. The first chapter describes the survey and the structure of the directory. Chapter 2 covers the overall level of demand for literacy and numeracy skills and examines how skill requirements vary form job to job. Data are summarized by 49 occupations. Examined in chapter 3 are the trends in the demand for basic skills and the importance of various job-related, workplace-related, and communication factors in influencing overall patterns of basic skill demands. Chapter 4 considered recent changes in employers' demands for basic skills in the workplace. In chapter 5, the adequacy of the current basic skills supply is reviewed from the standpoints of (1) employers' perceptions of their own employees' reading, writing, numeracy, and oral communications skills; and (2) their perceptions of labor supply in the labor market as a whole. A description of the research methods used is appended along with technical information on the survey. The report includes 23 figures and 37 tables. (MN)